Methods of Melting
by eicarG
Summary: "What was it like?" she whispers. "Your life, before the chems. Your mind, your thoughts." A collection of "missing" scenes from The Bourne Legacy, Marta's point of view.
1. Scene One

A/N: A collection of "missing" scenes from _The Bourne Legacy, _Marta's point of view. Word length will vary. I'm not really setting the scenes up for you ... just dropping you into them and assuming you've seen the movie (though possibly fewer times than I have) and will know/figure out where you are, chronologically speaking. :) Warnings: T for blood and suicidal contemplation.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Bourne franchise.

* * *

"If I can't keep it together, we won't make it."

Five—Kenneth—shuts the laptop, stands, and paces away from her, nub-nailed fingers laced behind his neck. He stops in front of the window he ordered her not to approach. A deep breath raises his shoulders, and the sigh seeps from his body like smoke. He gazes down at the parking lot, so still he seems to stop breathing.

Marta runs her thumb over the edge of the laptop. He talks as if his motivation for viraling off is simple survival, but she's learned more about Five in the last four hours than most people learn about lifelong acquaintances. She has never met someone so truly unfazed by, well, everything. Everything but the chems.

How much does he remember about his old life? The program wasn't designed to erase memory (was it?). Such a thing isn't possible (is it?).

_You don't know anything. Not really._ Maybe the program remade Kenneth into Five, a clean slate who merely knows his own history like a case file.

The frown that pulls at his eyes hints otherwise.

"What was it like?" she whispers.

He lifts his head, and a line forms between his eyebrows. "What?"

"Your life, before the chems. Your mind, your thoughts."

He shakes his head and focuses out the window again. "I'm not your science project, Doc."

"I wasn't trying to imply that, I just—"

"You're curious about your lab rat." He turns to face her and crosses his arms, muscle stretching the shoulder seams of his charcoal crew neck shirt. "Oh, science, what could we do for mighty science, if only Participant Five will elucidate the cognitive patterns of the mentally impaired?"

Her cheeks warm. She ducks her head, as if to conceal the armor-piercing-arrow effect of his words. Even if she looks away in time, he's heard her breath pause, maybe even heard her pulse elevate. She forces herself to meet his eyes again. If she provokes him too far, he'll abandon her. In fact, why hasn't he yet? _Form a connection._

"I'm sorry, Kenneth, I—"

"Don't."

"It won't happen a—"

"Don't call me that."

Five turns away, braces his hands on the cracking window sill, and stares at the night. Silence reinforces the wall between them. Form a connection? Who's she kidding? When he finally straightens and faces her, shadows still lurk in his eyes, but the pressed line of his mouth has eased. He wears confidence again, not like a mask or a coat. A skin, an essence. The essence of Five.

He holds out his hand. "I'm Aaron."

Marta takes it, his grip firm, his palm warm against hers—the palm that needed seven sutures once. His skin is tough but smooth, unscarred, of course. _Aaron._ Not a number, not a case study, not an experiment. A name. A man.

"Aaron Cross," he says.

Marta squeezes his hand when he begins to let go. "Good to meet you."


	2. Scene Two

A/N: Thank you for the encouraging reviews! I'm glad you all feel I'm writing in character, because that's my first goal. And if you choose to review this chapter, thanks in advance. I'll update every weekend, either Saturday or Sunday.

Warning & Disclaimer: See first chapter.

* * *

Marta probably could ask him to explain the details of the passport and the camera flash, but even when she stands in the doorway (and of course, he knows she's there), Aaron ignores her. Concentration draws down the corners of his mouth and gathers between his eyebrows. For a few minutes, she observes, but the heaviness of her eyelids is too much. She shuffles to one of the queen beds, pulls back the covers, and crawls into a cocoon of fabric-softener smell and cotton. She curls on her side and shuts her eyes and hopes not to dream.

Nothing awakens her. Her eyes simply snap open, maybe mid-nightmare or maybe not. Better not to remember. How long has she been asleep? The clock says over an hour. She pushes aside the heavy, green comforter and climbs out of bed.

"Aaron?"

Silence.

All his rigged equipment is out of sight. On the little desk lies her finished passport.

A parting gift.

Numbness starts in Marta's fingertips and creeps up her arms, into her chest. She tries to breathe, but his words are echoing, bouncing off the walls that squeeze closer. _"You can't run, not alone … You won't make it to sundown."_ So he expects her to … well, die, sooner or later. Marta's knees hit the carpet, then her hands. She weaves her fingers together behind her head and tries not to hyperventilate, not to throw up. Not to cry.

The automatic lock on the door disengages with a click. She jumps up and dashes around the bed, ducks just as the door swings open. Her peripheral vision identifies him. She freezes, half-hidden.

Aaron holds up both hands, and a green-lettered plastic bag—Subway—dangles from his right one. "Hey. It's just me."

Marta opens her mouth, then closes it. At the moment, she's as likely to scream as to give a coherent response. Her heartbeat pounds through her entire body.

He sets the bag on the night stand and steps closer. "What's wrong?"

"You …" She sinks onto the edge of the bed. Not alone. Not going to die. Well, possibly not.

"I was hoping you'd sleep longer, didn't want to wake you just to say I was going out for food."

"I thought …"

A moment hangs while he studies her face. It's the same piercing look that petrified her when she told him she didn't have the chems, when he held the sides of her face between hands that could break her neck. He nods slowly, looks at the bag of sandwiches, then back at her.

"You thought I wasn't coming back."

She forces the fists at her sides to relax, the air to fill her lungs. Admit it? Deny it? But in her hesitation, he nods again. How does he read her like that? No one she's ever met, known, dated, not even her family would call her transparent. Maybe witnessing two shootings is enough to shatter the ice around anyone, even Dr. Marta Shearing. She shivers.

For less than a second, his expression opens into something Marta can't name. Then he twitches a smile that doesn't warm his eyes. "So I brought you to a Comfort Inn in New York with the purpose of abandoning you. You truly make no sense, Doc."

She scrabbles for a response, but he doesn't seem to need one. He opens the Subway bag and hands her a foot-long.

"Turkey club with the works. You don't have any dietary restrictions, do you?"

She shakes her head and takes the sandwich. The bagel for breakfast seems a lifetime away, but until now, food hasn't entered her mind. Her stomach rumbles, not loudly enough for anyone but her to hear. But his mouth twitches again. Of course.

He digs into his own sandwich with the focus of a starving refugee. He devours the first half of the foot-long and reaches for the second without pause. He picks a crescent of salami off the wrapper and pops it into his mouth.

"Hungry?" she says. Where did that teasing tone come from?

This smile, half self-deprecating, does find his eyes. "Accelerated metabolism. As you know."

Oh … When had he eaten last? "How accelerated?"

"I was getting a little shaky."

"I didn't even think."

"Normally I keep MREs on hand, but …" He shrugs. "Sandwich okay?"

"It's delicious."

Aaron nods and finishes the second half of his sandwich before she finishes her first. She tucks the wrapper around the remaining half of turkey club, and the tension in her every muscle begins to release. Their silence no longer feels like a rubber band, stretched to the point of snapping.

"Tell me something," he says as he tosses his trash in the can beside the nightstand.

She waits, but he flops back onto the other bed and folds his arms over his chest and turns his head. That wasn't a preface. He's waiting, too.

"Something?"

"You know. About you."

"Well, I … I'm …" Heat rushes into her face. "You know I have a sister. Her name's Ilene, and she designs greeting cards for Hallmark."

Aaron rolls onto his side, propped up by an elbow. "Interesting family dichotomy."

"The artist and the scientist. That's us."

"All right, so … that's your sister. How about you? When you're not at work. What do you do? To unwind, to be yourself."

"My work is my … self, Aaron."

He nods. "So your mind is on viral mapping twenty-four/seven."

"Well, no, of course not." Marta scoots back on the bed until her spine touches the headboard. "All right. I like to ... well, I go to concerts."

"Hm. Not the symphony?"

"No. Pop concerts. The louder, the better."

"Why?"

Why is he asking? "It's about … not thinking. I don't know if that even makes sense. It's about getting lost in a group experience with all these strangers you don't need to know, and just … feeling. Music does that for me."

His smirk morphs into a grin that crinkles around his eyes. "Taylor Swift?"

"I've seen her twice." Her own smile feels rusted.

"Maroon 5."

"They're one of my favorites."

"Justin Timberlake."

"I haven't seen him." At Aaron's mockingly relieved eye roll, Marta adds, "Yet."

"Justin Bieber."

She balls up her napkin and throws it at his head, and he catches it without looking at it. "There _are_ lines I won't cross, Aaron."

He tosses the napkin toward the ceiling, and this time he doesn't catch it so much as allow it to fall straight back into his palm. "Good to know."

"Turnabout." She crosses her ankles and slouches down so that the headboard is supporting her neck. Ow. She grabs a pillow and stuffs it between her neck and the wood. "What about you?"

He pitches the napkin into the trash can across the room. "Me?"

"Of course, you."

For half a minute, he doesn't answer. Then he sits up as if this topic is too dire to discuss at ease. "What I do, to …"

"To be yourself." Maybe he doesn't want to tell her. She shouldn't assume he meant for her to ask.

But after another pause, he lies back on the bed again, arms folded, gaze on the ceiling. "I read. I like crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles … Sudoku."

"Really?"

"Yup." From the side of his face she can see, his expression is casual. But something's shifted in his voice, almost a hush, not unlike the tone he used to tell her that her family needed to believe she was dead.

"See, you're not predictable, either," she says. "I would have thought wilderness survival, target shooting, intense daily workout at the gym."

"Well, yeah, of course. But you asked about activities _not_ related to my work."

Ah. Right. Still, it's surprising that when he's allowed to choose, he gravitates toward things that utilize his enhanced mind rather than his enhanced body. … Wait. No. Marta pictures the dim gaze of Kenneth J. Kitsom, and Aaron's choices aren't surprising at all.

Maybe he senses her connecting dots he'd rather leave unconnected. He rolls to his side again and looks ready to change the subject.

"I'd think Sudoku would be ridiculously easy for you," she says, because for some reason, she can't stand the thought of this window into Aaron being shuttered.

He grins. "I can do a book in about an hour."

"A … book? A whole book? In an hour?"

"I look at the page and I see the numbers … pretty much instantly."

She huffs, and his grin widens, then fades.

"For most people, it's about the mental challenge. For me, it's about the reliability of the pattern, the steadiness, the pen filling it in. It's relaxing."

"I can see that, I guess. But what about when you want to be around people?"

He shrugs and lets their new, easy silence fill the spaces.

"You're an introvert?" That doesn't fit at all.

"No," he says. "But personal relationships are restricted and very closely monitored. Could compromise me, or so I'm constantly told."

A scoffing noise escapes her. "I know your file, the medical side of it, at least. Don't try to tell me you let—us—make personal decisions for you."

He pauses again, collecting. "What's the point in it, when nothing can be honest?"

"It just seems lonely." It's all Marta can think to say, but he gives her such an incredulous look that she forces a laugh. "I'm sorry, I guess I sound ridiculous."

Aaron smiles, shrugs. "Nah, Doc. You don't."


	3. Scene Three

A/N: Happy weekend early! I might not be around Saturday or Sunday, and this is finished, so here it is. Thanks in advance to reviewers!

Warning & Disclaimer: See Chapter 1.

* * *

_"When I almost died."_ The four words, Aaron's voice, have been ricocheting inside her head for the last hour. Her mouth has been a desert for the last three, since he jogged alongside her one minute and stumbled into her the next, heat radiating from his arm through both their shirts. She tries to swallow. Again. She splashes tepid tap water on her face and stares at herself in the mirror, sallow in this lighting or maybe just in this … panic. Yes, that's the name for it. Her heart rate won't settle. Her knees won't unlock, which is for the best at this point.

She did this to him. She injected the weakness, the fever, and whatever else he's feeling into his blood. And he thanked her.

Marta finds a clean towel from the drawer to the left of the sink and scrubs her face. He was dozing when she slipped into the bathroom, but if she's gone too long, he'll likely haul himself upright and come after her. His instruction to take the money and leave him behind was the last fully lucid thing he said. He's called her June a few times, mostly stared at her without recognition, but he also jolted to his feet once and hollered "Marta!" until she was able to convince him that she's at his side, unharmed. When the reassurance settled into his mind, he collapsed.

_"When I almost died."_

Was he alone that first time? She's never wondered before. They injected him and tossed him back into the field, and she pored over the medical reports later. Observe, record, analyze. Now her fatigued mind can't dredge up which of the data was gleaned from Aaron. From Five.

_Is that the kind of person I am, ultimately?_ Peter would say yes. That she is a composition of numbers and equations, formula and method, buttoned into a white coat she never strips off. Ever.

In the next room, rusted bedsprings squeak.

"For crying out loud, Aaron." Marta flips the towel over a rusted chrome rack, which wobbles under the weight of terry cloth, and exits the bathroom. The first whisper of dawn slants in the window across from her, a promise that time truly is passing and every hour he doesn't die increases the odds that he won't. She steps around the corner and—

Stops. Breath. Motion. Thought. All. Stops.

Aaron looks up at her but keeps the gun barrel pressed to his forehead.

Somehow, her voice isn't frozen. "Aaron."

He doesn't move.

"That's not … that's not loaded, is it?"

A corner of his mouth tips in a smirk. "Be kind of pointless if it wasn't."

"Okay, this—this is not—" He's not suicidal. He's fought too hard, and not only to protect her … right? "Please put that down."

"I would."

"Aaron, put it down, please." Her voice is pitching like a sea. What will convince him? Does he even know who she is? She gasps in a deep breath and holds it and thinks. To talk him down, she has to know his reason.

"You'll be okay, I told you."

Does he know her? That could be a reference to their last conversation. Which means he knows where he is, knows their situation. Whatever this is, it's not Kenneth. It's Aaron. "You want to die?"

He sighs.

"Look at me," she whispers.

A drop of sweat drips down his chin and falls to the grimy carpet. He stares at his bare feet. Finally, he lifts his head again, and the gun doesn't lower or slip. He presses it harder between his eyes.

"Don't you dare pull that trigger until you explain why you're pulling it."

"It might not work," he whispers.

The gun? Their plan? Escape? … Oh. The virus. "It's inside your body working, right now. If it wasn't, you wouldn't be delirious."

Again, the twitch in the corner of his mouth, but this one is mirthless. "I'm not delirious, Marta."

"So put down the gun."

"I'm not going back."

"To Outcome?"

"Ever, I'm not ever going back." Fever dulls his voice.

"You don't have to, you don't have to do anything you don't—"

"They'll catch up with him. They'll take him and he won't even fight. He'll follow any order they give him, and they'll know that, because he'll _tell_ them. And Outcome—that's the best case scenario. What if someone else gets to him? A mission goes sideways, a mark—"

"That's not going to happen, the virus is working."

"I was nothing but a freaking dog after a cookie, do you understand that? Train me any way you wanted and I'd never think to question my training because I _couldn't_."

His finger trembles and slides into the trigger well. Marta lurches forward, though it's the last sane thing to do when a man is holding a gun to his own head. She drops to her knees in front of him.

"Aaron, are you—" Her throat closes around the words. She swallows. She must keep talking, must keep him talking. She slides her hands under her knees. "Are you having trouble forming thoughts? Is your sensory perception degrading?"

"I can't wait for that."

"All right, listen to me. You aren't thinking straight. You have a fever. You need to—"

"What if I start to—fall? And it happens too fast? Kenneth won't know to do it."

"If I promise to—" She forces herself not to choke. "If the virus doesn't work, to do it for you. Will you put the gun down?"

"Not if you don't mean it."

Maybe the bluff is obvious and she's not thinking straight herself. Or maybe his stormy eyes see straight through her. Nothing new there. His intensity burns her until she has to look away.

"I have to do this, Marta. Now." His finger absently strokes the trigger. That stupid freaking gun is going to go off, and Aaron …

Tears surge. She tries to blot them, bury them, breathe through the sob, but it ruptures from her chest, and she rises up on her knees and wraps her hands around his wrist.

"Aaron, please, Aaron, please, Aaron, please."

He shudders at her touch. "You—you have everything you need. The money, and there's—"

"You think I want you to live so I'm not alone out here? So I can use your skills to survive? So I can study you? For science?"

Through the fever and determination, sluggish confusion furrows his brow, just below the gun barrel. Marta's hands release his wrist and curl around the butt of the gun, her fingers lacing between his. She tries to tug at it, but even ill unto death, his grip is iron.

"I want you to live because I don't want you to die," she says.

Aaron's lips part slowly. He stares at her as if deciphering the words. The gun wobbles.

_Oh, God._ It might or might not be an actual prayer to a God Marta doesn't actually believe in. But she's pleading with Someone or something.

He lowers the gun. Sets it beside him on the bed. Marta pushes herself up, ignores the tremors in her limbs, and wraps her arms around him not for the first time in this longest of nights, but this isn't the same embrace. She pulls him closer. She cradles the back of his head when the burst of resolute energy pours from his body and he goes limp in her arms. She rocks gently as a whimper leaches from him. Aaron's arms circle her. His fingers press into her back, as if he's afraid she will disappear.

"No more tests," he whispers.

"No." She rests her chin in his sweaty hair.

"I don't want … I want …"

"Shhh."

"Falling."

She waits for him to drift away again into that agitated, moaning place, but when his arms slacken, it isn't like before. His fever is spiking, and even normal human strength drains from his body. So fast. She sits at his side, their fingers twined together, for over an hour. As far as she can tell, the fever keeps rising. His rolling and shifting on the bed give way to exhausted stillness, and the quiet moans give way to silence. He's only breathing now. And the fever doesn't break.

He would snap at her for considering this, much less doing it. The risk truly is too much. But he could wake again and choose death the next time. Or he could wake not at all. Leaving him seems dangerous, but her hovering presence isn't helping any more than the cool cloth on his forehead, warm again before she withdraws her hand. Superior physiology or not, he needs something to help fight the fever.

She tries to conceal the gun under her zip hoodie, tucked in her pants at the center of her back, a move Aaron makes look so easy. She checks the gun's visibility in the bathroom mirror, and she might as well have a protruding tumor back there. But she can't leave it with Aaron. She stashes it under the stack of towels in the cabinet and hopes he isn't able to sniff out gunpowder. She'd unload it if she knew how and take the clip with her, but she's never touched a gun before today. A shiver traces her spine.

Marta scribbles a note in blue pen—_"Went for medicine." _Then, as if this will emphasize her subtext—_I'll be fine, be back shortly; see, obtuse male, this is how you communicate when you leave temporarily_—she draws an arrow pointing at the words. He doesn't stir as she slips out of the apartment.


	4. Scene Four

A/N: The first three scenes were about deepening the story/characters of the film. This scene is about filling a gap in events. I find much to love about this movie, but the last ten minutes or so don't satisfy me. Too much is skipped over. Again, thanks to all who have reviewed so far. Glad you are finding my little scenes worthwhile.

Warning & Disclaimer: See chapter one.

* * *

When the skidding, burning motion stops, she's sure they're both dead. Then science whispers in her ear that death is the end of sensation, not the beginning. Her hip throbs. Her shoulder throbs. Her back aches. She grips one thigh to leverage herself into a sitting position. Beside her, Aaron rolls over from his back and tries to get up. He can't raise himself even an inch off the cement.

"You okay?" she whispers, leaning closer.

He rolls onto his back again, nodding, letting his arm fall to his side. He doesn't open his eyes. Marta's stomach clenches. Aaron is supposed to get up. He's supposed to grab her hand and pull her along the fringe of the crowd, keeping his body between her and the threat. He's not supposed to shut his eyes and surrender.

She reaches toward him, and her hand misses his jacket. Okay, maybe the world's still spinning a bit. Through the roaring in her ears, she realizes Aaron's breathing is as rough as hers, another thing that's not supposed to happen. _Get up, Aaron, get up!_ He lifts one hand, and she grabs hold. His fingers curl around hers. Weakly.

She squeezes his hand. "You okay?"

"Yeah … yeah," he barely whispers.

She catalogues the last fifteen hours of his life: a nearly lethal virus, a dash over the rooftops that involved climbing and jumping and whatever else he had to do to reach her in that alley, brief hand-to-hand with those cops, two gunshot wounds, and no food at all.

No wonder he can't move.

Marta sits back to breathe and think. Her hand shifts in Aaron's, and he presses it too lightly but the message is clear. _Don't let go._ She won't. She'll create a plan and execute it. She'll save them both. Somehow. The heavy smell of saltwater fortifies her resolve. Aaron wanted to get them to the water, and he did. She's hunched on the chill concrete under the wharf, boats lining her vision to the left. And … oh. A Filipino boy in a neon green tank top stands beside one of the dock's cement pillars. Staring, of course. Did he see the crash?

A middle-aged man rushes over to him, murmuring a few syllables in Tagalog or maybe just admonishing with the boy's name. The man turns slowly and seems to see her for the first time. He lifts a hand toward his face as if to erase the scene in front of him, then stands gaping.

She grips Aaron's hand as hard as she can, trying to signal. A witness. Danger. Get up, Aaron, get up get up get up. The labored breathing behind her proves he's conscious. His hand twitches, then goes limp.

With a bruised shoulder and hip, she probably can't even drag him to some hiding place before the cops show up. She was wrong about saving him. She wants to be that woman, but she isn't.

"Can you help us?" she says to the man.

He stares over her head, the direction the bikes came. Yes, he saw the whole thing. Trusting him is ill-advised at best, and if he doesn't speak English, they can't even communicate. But Aaron is motionless and bleeding. This stunned stranger is her only hope.

"Please." In another time and place, she might hate the quaver in her voice.

The man's eyes narrow, and then he nods. The moment he arrives at decision, he follows with action. He rushes to Aaron and scowls at the blood leaking from his shoulder, dripping onto the cement from his thigh.

And no, he doesn't speak English. What is he trying to tell her? Agitation contorts his mouth as he glares from her to Aaron … until Aaron answers him. For a minute, they seem to be arguing, and then Aaron releases Marta's hand long enough to tug off the security guard's gold watch and hold it out. The man doesn't smile, but he takes it and nods.

When his hand skims Aaron's shoulder, Aaron tenses despite whatever pact the watch seems to have sealed. But he allows the man to drape his arm over his shoulder and half-drag him onto one of the boats. At least, Marta tells herself he's allowing it. The possibility that he's too weak to resist sets a stone on her chest.

As they're stepping onboard, his dull eyes find her. "You swim?"

What? "I can.…"

"…'Kay."

The man's name is Danilo, and the boy is Amado. Danilo lowers Aaron to a hammock in the cabin, leaves and returns with a slapdash first aid collection: clean white rags instead of gauze or bandages, masking tape instead of medical tape, and tweezers. At least there's a clear plastic bottle of—Marta sniffs it—yes, alcohol. Danilo and Aaron have a brief conversation, and Aaron reaches for her hand as the man hurries away.

"Marta."

"I'm right here."

She wraps one of the rags around the graze in his shoulder, which isn't bleeding much now, and presses another to the wound in his thigh. He doesn't flinch, but the cloth rapidly soaks with bright red. Her stomach balls into a cold knot. She's not squeamish exactly, but there are reasons she went into virology, and her residency is years in the past. Not as if she ever watched surgery to remove a bullet, anyway.

They have no scalpel, of course. Will the tweezers be enough? They'll have to be. _She_ will have to be enough. "Don't worry, Aaron. I can do this."

He seizes her wrist with the grip of a child. "Wait. First … I …"

"You what?"

He clenches his eyes shut. "I … have … to … eat."

"Did you tell him—Danilo?"

Aaron nods. In a minute, Danilo returns with a small crockery bowl of shrimp, tomatoes, eggplant, something that might be okra … and other vegetables. It smells delicious. Maybe Marta should have acquainted herself more with the local cuisine when she was last here for work.

Danilo gives Marta the food and says, "_Dinengdeng_," then leaves them again.

Aaron's arm trembles as he pushes himself up, but he waves off her attempt to help him. She sets the bowl on his lap, and he forks a bite, then another, with a slow, shaking hand. Marta crouches beside him and replaces the bloody rag with a fresh one. Five minutes later, his fork is clinking against the bottom of the bowl. His breathing has steadied, his gaze has sharpened, and his grip appears stronger—all in five minutes.

"Mm." His voice remains faint, but using it no longer seems to require effort. "_Pinakbet._"

"Not _dinengdeng_?"

"Same difference." He leans down to set the bowl on the floor and winces as he straightens.

"I think 'accelerated' is an understatement."

He smirks.

"Are you ready for surgery?" she says.

"Are you?"

"Absolutely not."

His hand closes over hers to remove the rag from his leg.

"I can do it," he says. "But if you could tear the tape, that would—"

"You're not serious."

He looks up from the wound with arched eyebrows. No, that wasn't a joke. "You think I've never dug a bullet out of my body before?"

"Aaron."

"It missed my femur, so no bone fragments. And I wouldn't suture it, even if we had suture on hand. All I have to do is irrigate and pack the wound. Once the bleeding stops, I'll be fine."

The synapses from her ears to her brain must be breaking down. No other explanation for this crazy speech of his. Marta grabs the tweezers and the alcohol bottle. "I'm doing this. Lie back."

"You said you weren't ready."

"I wasn't when I said it."

The defiance stays etched into the frown lines around his mouth and eyes, but it's overshadowed by the tremor in his hands and the color leaching from his face. Food deprivation might outrank blood loss on Aaron's metabolic priority list, but that doesn't mean he can bleed from two major wounds unaffected. He pulls a knife from a sheath at his ankle, and Marta sanitizes it as well as the tweezers.

Propped on his elbows, he folds the remaining clean rags into squares and holds the tweezers until she needs them. Marta swallows fear and uncertainty and nausea, then cuts away the leg of his jeans. He's silent as she peels the fabric off the wound and cleans around it. Silent as she slices through skin and fascia. Silent as she probes with freaking _tweezers_ and finally has to dig inside with her glove-less finger. By then, the blood is dripping through the hammock to the deck beneath. When her fingertip grazes the bullet, inadvertently pressing it against torn muscle, Aaron's short gasp nearly breaks down the wall around her emotions. She blinks hard. Now isn't the time to feel … anything.

He's watching her face, not her hands. His voice is sandpaper. "That's it, Doc."

Probably he intends the nickname only as support, a reminder. _That's right, I'm a doctor._ But the emotions behind the wall hear it as an endearment. A soft sob escapes.

"Hey," Aaron says. "Focus. You can do it."

_You can make it. You're a warrior._ If he only knew. But she'll be a warrior for this moment. She probes with the tweezers, fits them around the slug, squeezes them tight, tugs … and the bullet is out.

She holds it up to show him. "Done."

Aaron nods, teeth clenched, breathing long and deep through his nose. "Good."

By the time she's cleaned and dressed the now gaping hole, Aaron's arms have given out, and he's lying flat on his back, gaze tilted down to watch her.

"Finished," she says, and her wall crumbles.

She braces against the hammock's support beam, leaving a bloody handprint on the wood. The front of her hoodie is blood-smeared, too—when did that happen?—so she tries to wipe her hands clean on the opposite sleeves. So much blood. How is he still conscious? How did she do what she just did?

"Marta."

She lifts her head and sniffs back tears. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"Stop it, tell me the truth, are you okay?"

"Yes. That's the truth. Okay? I'm fine. In a week, I won't even be limping."

"You need something for the pain."

"Don't worry about that."

"Maybe I'd worry less if you'd cry and whine like a real man."

A sheen has broken out on his forehead, and he's white as a lab coat. He tips his head to one side, and the smirk he doesn't have energy for plays behind his eyes.

"So I'm not a real man?"

"That's not exactly what I said."

"Kind of is."

His eyes are starting to close, but he's fighting it, the same way he always fought anesthesia. It's a knife thrust of a memory now. Aaron struggles to sit up, and the hammock sways.

Marta pushes lightly on his chest. "Rest."

The levity is gone from his face. He manages to force himself upright. _Here we go again._ Stubborn man. What should she do? And then she knows.

She cradles his head and tilts it back. The blood left on her hands is mostly dried and doesn't smudge. Confusion flickers on his face, then recognition. _Yes, we've done this before._ In the days when he called her Dr. Shearing and she called him a number in her chart notes and nothing to his face. No more than a week ago.

He resists and mumbles something between "No" and "Um."

"Aaron," she says, and he stills. "Aaron. It's okay to rest."

Aaron closes his eyes, and tension seeps from his body until only her hands hold him up. "Okay."


	5. Scene Five

A/N: And this final scene is my attempt to put a bit more flesh on the movie-skeleton of their relationship. THANK YOU! for the reviews. I love all the thoughtful comments I have received in the course of posting this story. Hope this conclusion satisfies you all. :)

Warning & Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

* * *

"Are we lost?"

His focus stays on the map. "No."

Unusual for Aaron to ignore the lilt of humor in her tone, but he sounds more relaxed than she's ever heard him, almost absent, safe enough to let musings take over for awhile rather than senses and reflexes. Last night was painful for both of them, stretched out in separate hammocks. She's pretty sure he slept less than she did; whenever her bruises jarred her from sleep, he was awake. Still, this morning he looks rested. The sea breeze ruffles his hair.

"Just looking at our options," he says.

Right. Their options are spread over the entire globe. And of course, he wants a plan of action. But for today … "I was kind of hoping we were lost."

His eyes crinkle, and then the smile curves his mouth. Their gazes lock, and Aaron rolls the map up and pushes it away.

Uncharted. The word sums up … well, her life now. Where she's headed, when she gets there … who she'll be with.

"Tell me something," she says.

He smiles and looks out over the water for a long moment. When he turns back to her, the smile has flattened. "Ask whatever you want. It's okay."

She reaches across the table and weaves their fingers together. Today, his grip is strong again. She simply holds on, so he'll know she understands the difficulty of the gift he just offered. In time, she'll ask about Kenneth. She'll ask about his work for Outcome, if his proficiency at killing is the whole truth or merely a part. She'll ask about the gun he pointed at his own head, whether he knows if he'd have pulled the trigger.

But not today.

"How often do you have to eat?" she says.

His eyebrows arch, and a quiet chuckle accepts her choice of topic. "Every three hours."

"Not really convenient."

"Sometimes not."

"Any other kryptonite I should know about?"

He leans back in his chair but keeps hold of her hand. "Well, I can't ever take you to see Justin Timberlake."

"How many decibels is too much?"

"As far as I know, no one ever tested me to find out."

"Is it … painful?"

He glances away from the sparkling water to meet her eyes. "Debilitating." But then he shrugs. "And there you have it. My Achilles heels."

The next few minutes unfold with a blessed lull, with the gentle whir of the boat motor and the wake of water behind it. Aaron picks up a mango sitting on the table, and the same knife that yesterday cut a bullet from his leg. Sunlight glints off the blade as he slices the fruit, peels it, and offers her the first piece. Marta shakes her head; she isn't hungry, and he probably is. Aaron polishes off almost the entire mango before he speaks again.

"You understand what happens now?"

"Nothing's over. I can't call Ilene or anyone else. Probably ever."

He nods. "They'll always need us dead."

"Especially you," she says.

He tilts his head, eyes narrowing to measure her, and lets her clarify even though he must know what she means.

"You slipped the leash."

"Ah." He pitches the mango pit over the side of the boat, wipes the blade on the khaki cargos loaned to him by Danilo, and conceals his knife at his ankle.

"Is there anything we can do? To … to stop them, to …?" But the words are ridiculous even to her. They're two people, even if one of them is permanently more than human.

"I don't know yet."

Yet. He's thought of it, too. "I'll help however I can."

"No, you won't."

"Aaron—"

"It's not your cause to die for, Doc."

"They tried to kill me, too, in case you've forgotten."

"I won't negotiate this. Or debate it."

His tone isn't barbed, but the words sting—the thought that he'd claim this fight and then ban her from it. But when did they merge like this in her mind? What's this fusion in the center of her, this knowledge that walking away from him now will … hurt?

"Can—can I tell you something?" No, not this. She doesn't talk about this. But the words are out now, and she doesn't really want to snatch them back.

He doesn't answer, but he shifts in his chair to face her. And he waits.

"I … I've been called …"

Peter's voice echoes in her memory, English accent and precision of diction. _"You might be an ice queen, but you're my ice queen."_ Until her headlong devotion to her work wasn't sexy anymore. Until she confronted the choice he wanted her to make from the beginning, though he denied it.

"Most of my life, people have considered me … chilly, at best. And I guess I've … behaved that way and felt that way. Often."

Aaron doesn't respond, doesn't move.

"I figured that was just me. You know? No, you don't know. You're not at all a cold person. But anyway, I … I'm … the last few days have … Maybe it's purely because you're the only person who knows me. The—the truth, the details. Of me."

He nods.

"I just … for some reason, I want you to know that."

He clasps her hand between both of his. "Do you remember what I said about personal relationships?"

"You don't see the point in them."

"Because I couldn't be honest."

Oh. A smile blooms inside her, then lifts the corners of her mouth. "Oh."

Aaron's thumb runs along her knuckles, and he smiles, too. Beyond them, the waves shimmer as far as Marta can see.

~END~


End file.
